


Dancing Between the Stars

by Lulukaw



Category: Fire Emblem: If | Fire Emblem: Fates
Genre: Dancing, F/F, Fluff, Ophelia is adorable, Soleil too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-03 04:59:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17277524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lulukaw/pseuds/Lulukaw
Summary: Often at night, Soleil comes out to dance somewhere, hidden from everyone. But tonight she has an unexpected spectator.





	Dancing Between the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Hello there~  
> So this is the very first text I post on this site, and it is also the very first text I post in English. So please tell me if you see any mistake (and try explaining them to me if you can, it's the best way to learn !)  
> I wrote this while listening to Bach's Goldberg Variations - Aria so I advise you to do the same if you want, it's a really pretty piece !  
> Thank you sooo much Naelhinn for your beta-reading, and I hope you all will enjoy this !

Soleil loved to dance. She was not as good as her father on whom she sometimes went to spy in the little glade of the forest bordering the castle. He used to dance with her when she was a little girl. As the daughter of Prince Xander’s vassal, he had taught her a few formal dances. Waltz, gavotte, jig, mazurka even, although she did not really see the point in knowing the latter as she had never seen anyone dance the mazurka at any balls she had attended. But she liked it. Her father had told her it was a very popular dance in his homeland. And she cherished the memories attached to it and all the other dances she had learned, when Laslow would take her little hands and make her stand on his own feet to guide her. Yes, Soleil loved to dance. She liked when the rhythm was so fast that she would end up breathless as the orchestra struck the last note, she liked when the movements would make her turn and turn and turn again until she got dizzy, she liked that she had to match the pace and every single note perfectly to almost make only one with the music, to represent the music, to be the music. Soleil liked dancing so much that a large part of her fighting style used dance moves. It was pretty much the same she thought. It was all adapting oneself to a changing pace, placing one’s body according to a partner, and never doing any superfluous move in order to remain graceful and beautiful and, well, alive.

Now, aside from the battlefield, Soleil did not have a partner to dance with anymore. As she grew up, both her and Laslow became too shy to dance together or even to show a new move to one another. Like father, like daughter, her mother had said. It did not bother her too much. Well, she would have liked to have a partner sometimes to practice some duo dancing, but she also liked to dance alone. And often, when she could not sleep and was not away for some mission, she would get out of her room at night to go and dance in her favourite place. There was a music room in the castle - of course there was. Soleil had discovered it by chance a little after she had gotten her quarters here. Even now that the war was over it was still scarcely used by anyone. Few members of the royal family or of her fellow soldiers shared a real interest in music. Still, she would only come during the night. At night she was certain that noone would surprise her. At night everything was calm and silent and she could focus entirely on her body and the imaginary music that ran through her mind.

That night was one of those nights. Soleil slowly pushed one of the large adorned doors and began to light some of the candlesticks that stood in the music room with the one that had helped her cross the aisle of the castle. She only lit the number necessary for her to see what she was doing and have a warm, comfortable, dim brightness. The room was huge, all long and tall. The walls were covered with mirrors except for the outside one which consisted only of immense windows - that acted as mirrors too in the darkness of night - to allow in as much of the pale Nohrian sunlight as possible and glass doors led on a balcony where she would get a bit of fresh air after a particularly intense dance session. Her steps echoed softly on the wooden floor and every new little flame she was giving birth to let a new instrument or a table covered in musical scores appear. Soleil ignited one last candle before looking at the space that would be her stage for the night. She had only lightened a small part of the room but the soft light was reflecting everywhere, on the mirrors and the windows, like countless floating stars. Ophelia would like the sight, she thought before rubbing her nape with an embarrassed smile. She caught herself to be thinking a lot about her lately. She was always seeking her company, asking her to go drink some tea, to go in town, to lend her some of her mystique books, any excuse really. Usually she was like that with about every girl she met but for a few weeks now she had noticed, Ophelia was the only one with whom she wanted to spend some time. After all it had to happen one day, she had to settle for someone. Thinking about it, it was no wonder she had fallen for Ophelia actually: beside being adorable - all women were ; no she was even cuter -, the entirety of her personality was simply charming. Her eccentricity, the passion she had for the stars and magic, her way of always talking with grandiloquent expressions, made-up words and incantations that Soleil did not always understand but she could spend hours listening to that voice so soft and quiet then suddenly raising and shouting with the greatest animation the next second, and the habit she had of replacing a strand of her light silky hair even when it was already in place, and the sparkles in her pearly grey eyes when she was talking about this new stone she had found and polished and how its power would help her read the stars and…  
Soleil shook her head to erase her dreamy smile and the thoughts filling her head. She was here to dance. Maybe one night she would bring her here to dance with her. To show her the little performance she offered to nobody on those many nights, to show her the scenery of her dozens of warm glowing stars reflecting in the room. But enough! She was getting distracted again. At this rate the sun would rise before she had even moved from her initial place. She was not even in the circular space she had arranged as her stage yet.  
Determined to not let her thoughts get side-tracked again, she put the candle she was still holding on the big white piano beside her. Yes, the piano would be her guide for tonight.

Soleil took place in her little improvised stage, feeling the warmth of all the candles surrounding her. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. Then the first trail of notes began to sound in her mind and her arms instinctively raised to her chest before spreading slowly, lazily, and her body followed. Soleil began to dance. Her feet slid smoothly on the floor, her hips took her whole body for a first spin, and a second. It was not any kind of real dance. She only wanted to follow the waves of the music, to undulate with each and every note she could feel vibrating inside of her. She only wanted to let her body be carried by the ripples reverberating in every inch of her being, flowing through her limbs, her skin, her muscles, her blood, her heart. She did not need to open her eyes and see what she was doing. She just had to feel. Feel the air running on her skin as she was moving faster. Feel the slightest imperfection on the floor. Feel the almost burning warmth on the tip of her fingers when she went too close to a candle. Feel every chord, feel every ivory key, every string of the piano being struck and resonating throughout her body as though someone was playing in the room with her, accompanying her, only a few steps away from her. Soleil continued to turn, slide, fly, for a long time, all night it seemed to her. The notes were going on and on, slow, fast, playful then nostalgic, strong and loud before quieting, almost whispering, and starting all over again. Once again, she thought of Ophelia, her voice, her eyes, her gestures. The pace was slowing again, probably for the last time. Soleil could feel the sweat running down her spine. She was almost out of breath. After one last arabesque, she let herself fall loosely on the floor as the very last notes resounded and suspended there, ending the music and the dance, and forcing Soleil to slowly come back to her senses.

She stayed on the floor a long moment, catching her breath. Through her still closed eyelids, she could see that the light was dimmer than before. Some of her movements had probably been too fast for the candles. When she was finally able to fill her lungs regularly, she opened her eyes again. What she noticed at first was that her numerous spins had led her to face the windows that were not quite mirrors anymore because of the few extinguished flames. Then what she noticed a fraction of second later were two silver orbs, out on the balcony, looking straight back at her with their usual sparkle of amazement. And for the first time this sparkle was directed at Soleil.

Ophelia rose up from the place where she had been sitting all night to go and join Soleil in the music room. When the door opened, a more than welcome breeze came with the mage, cooling her burning skin. But it was not enough. Not enough at all. If her cheeks were already red from the dancing, they became even redder as Ophelia approached her with a large bright smile, throwing her arms in the air before even beginning to speak.

“Soleil, this was-- amazing! Beautiful! Fantastic! Blindsiding, dumbfounding, flabbergasting, grandiose! You, voluble and versatile silhouette drowned in the light of those blazing, waving stars, moving - no, not moving - shifting, stirring, spinning, flying, floating! With such grace, such beauty, such gentleness and yet such strength, such determination!”  
“O-ophelia, I-” attempted Soleil, still kneeling on the floor and more embarrassed than ever. But there was no stopping her.  
“Like a comet, a shooting star! And me, O how lucky am I! How thankful am I to the stars, the Geminids, to Artames and to Nòtt for allowing me to witness such a mesmerising spectacle!”  
“Please, Ophelia- S-stop I’m…!”  
“How could I not know that you, Soleil, were hiding such an astounding beauty? Oh, not that there isn’t beauty in you usually, but this- This! This was-”

A hand grabbed her arm and she finally stopped and looked at Soleil who was staring at the floor. She was mortified. That Ophelia had seen her dance! She had thought about it earlier but she was not prepared for this night to be the night! She tried to regain her composure. Ophelia was waiting for her to talk.

“Wh-what are you even doing here in the first place?” she said, keeping her head low to avoid her eyes.  
“Oh, I came here at dusk, this balcony is the best to summon the powers of the stars and tonight was the beginning of the Geminids meteor shower, but whatever, you ! You surpassed the stars themselves!”

Wow. Ophelia had dismissed the stars that she loved so much, for her, to admire her, to praise her. Soleil rose her head to look at her for the first time. Her whole face must have been crimson, perhaps even her ears and her neck, but she was not able to detach her eyes from Ophelia’s. She seemed so excited, so happy. She could not help but smile back. She had not been prepared, but maybe it was for the best. Maybe she would never have had the courage to invite her on another night. Now, seeing her like this, surely she would invite her every night. Maybe they could watch the stars together on the balcony too sometimes. She would be so glad to listen to her telling about every single star.

Ophelia helped her get back on her feet and said something that Soleil did not hear, lost in her thoughts and in her eyes.

“Soleil,” she repeated, “would you teach me how to dance like you?”  
Soleil, suddenly aware of her demand became all flustered again. But now was not the time! It was what she had waited, she needed to give the right answer!

“Huh, me? I- er, yes ! I will- I can, I- Yes!”

With the help of a new, soft smile from Ophelia, she forced herself to breathe slowly and calm down. Finally returning her smile, she took her hand and led her further on her stage. And the piano in her head started playing again.


End file.
